You Know You Are Old When

[Fuddyduddy1952]

I know I'm old because I'm constantly swatting at Ocular floaters.

 

[BravoXray]

I know I'm old because I'm constantly swatting at Ocular floaters.

I have one in my left eye that drives me crazy. When sitting at the counter eating breakfast and reading the paper, moving my eyes makes it jump around and I think it's a bug or something.

 

[Shenandoah MF1760]

I'm sure just as often the reverse it true.
Nearest Menard's is maybe 1000 mi away, so not really an option but I've found Lowes will have something that HD doesn't and vice versa in about equal amounts.

To be fair, you can't expect every employee to know where every single item in a store that big is located. Usually, I don't have any trouble finding the stuff that's in an obvious place, it's the oddball items that can be difficult to find.


Yeah, Lowes is pretty good in that regard as is HD. Most other stores, not so much.
As much as Walmart hypes online ordering/pick up at store, their website is inconsistent about what a local store has in stock, and is rife with items that for some reason cannot be shipped to store. WTF? You'd think a chain as ubiquitous as WM would have that down by now and make the most of it.

Seems to me that there's an unwritten rule that states "No hardware store is allowed to stock compatible/matching plumbing fittings." They'll have everything except that one piece or two needed to complete the job or repair.

 

[Shenandoah MF1760]

I have one in my left eye that drives me crazy. When sitting at the counter eating breakfast and reading the paper, moving my eyes makes it jump around and I think it's a bug or something.

Yep! I'll be in the woods and move my head, the floater moves and I think something darted through the brush.

 

[Shenandoah MF1760]

.. or when you’re older than your dad ever lived to be.

Well... got past mom. Not hard to do when someone lived on coffee and cigarettes.

Average age of us kids dying is thus far at 60, and I have a few more years to break past the high mark. I keep telling my remaining sister that she's responsible for raising the average. One sister dying at 14 is what brought the average so low.

 

[Shenandoah MF1760]

Genetics has the biggest say in one's longevity as a general rule.

During the pandemic a fancy Russian lab had a sale going on where they'd do a compete sequencing of your genes for half what they usually charged. Way beyond a 23&Me type of thing.

Since I'm missing half my family tree, my wife decided I should do this for medical and piece of mind reasons.

One of the markers they had was about a Methuselah gene which if you had that variation, it gave you a tendency to live a longer life.

Yeah... I don't have that one.

 

[Alan46]

I have one in my left eye that drives me crazy. When sitting at the counter eating breakfast and reading the paper, moving my eyes makes it jump around and I think it's a bug or something.

Hey BravoXray, what is this paper you speak of?

 

[NoTrespassing]

Yep! I'll be in the woods and move my head, the floater moves and I think something darted through the brush.

I have several small floaters in one eye that can be problematic playing video games.

 

[WinterDeere]

Seems to me that there's an unwritten rule that states "No hardware store is allowed to stock compatible/matching plumbing fittings." They'll have everything except that one piece or two needed to complete the job or repair.

Years ago, our well pump failed on a Saturday evening. I was already swamped with other projects, so I figured I'd just call a plumber out to do the fix for me... but none were interested in taking a weekend emergency call from a new customer.

"No problem," I say, I'll just go pick up a new pump at Lowes Sunday morning, and do the swap myself. I tell my wife her and the kids will be showering by dinner time.

Well, it turns out that the submersible well pumps sold by Lowes in the size needed for my depth and flow have a 1-1/4" NPT outlet fitting. But neither Lowes nor anyone else open on a Sunday carries 1-1/4" NPT tubing fittings to adapt to our existing ABS. How they can carry a pump without carrying the fitting that the pump requires, is beyond me... one of their buyers missed an opportunity, there.

In the middle of calling around to every hardware and plumbing store in the tri-state area, one of the plumbers I'd tried on Saturday evening finally returned my call, and I was telling him about this fitting I couldn't find anywhere. He happened to have one, so I paid him a service call fee to just come drop off the fitting for me.

 

[Fuddyduddy1952]

Everything breaks on the weekend. Everything.

 

[NoTrespassing]

Everything breaks on the weekend. Everything.

We had a couple hose clamps let go on our submersible well pump one morning when we had a party scheduled for that afternoon at our house. The pump was running constantly, spraying out in the top of the well. A very good friend of mine that is a jack of all trades came to the rescue. We pulled the pump up about 6', removed the pitless adapter and replaced the hose clamps. If it weren't for my buddy Josh, the party would have had to be cancelled and who knows when I could have gotten a well guy out to fix it.

The name "pitless adapter" originates from the historical practice of using well pits to connect water wells to service lines. In the past, these pits required manual assembly and disassembly of pipe fittings, making maintenance difficult and unsanitary. The introduction of pitless adapters in the mid-1950s eliminated the need for well pits, allowing for a more sanitary and convenient connection between the well and the water line. This change was significant in improving well construction practices and reducing contamination risks.

 

[MossRoad]

Wow!
Really sorry about your Mom.
Sixty years ago we had this family friend who died from an aneurysm when she was 42. A very gorgeous lady. My physician Grandfather said it's like a weak spot in an inner tube. The artery or vein bursts. Maybe high blood pressure is/can be a real problem (?).
Funny you mentioned Nubain. The worst pain in my life many years ago was from gall stones. At the hospital nurse asks me on a scale of 10 how bad was it. I answered about a 56...so she gave me an injection. Within seconds I jumped up, shook her hand saying "THANK YOU!!!". As I was getting dressed she laughed saying noooo...that was morphine!
Then after surgery next day they said I could go home if I could pee in the bathroom. Now I've never understood why so many nurses are so pretty but this one was WOW! pretty. She followed me into the bathroom and I had to politely explain that wouldn't work!
She waited outside & I was able to go home.

Thanks about my mom. She was gone in 20 minutes. But it was expected, so we weren't shocked. Saddened, but not shocked. It was much worse when my dad developed cancer. They gave him 4 years, but he developed a condition and they changed it to 6 weeks. He was gone in 5.

The bright side is, while I only got to spend 27 and 34 years with my folks respectively, they were REALLY great years. I think of them pretty often. Wish they could have been around to meet our kids. Fortunately, both of my in-laws (whom I've known longer than my own folks) are/were really great grandparents to our kids (and really great in-laws to me).

I had a friend that got married around age 20. He and his wife of similar age went out for a bicycle ride. They came home, she said she was tired, went to take a nap, and never woke up.

She died from an aneurism as well. So he's 20, with a -1 year old baby, single dad. Several years lady he met a woman with 3 kids of her own, got married and they're pushing 70 now.

Sometimes life punches you in the gut then kisses you on the cheek.

 

[ultrarunner]

Seems to me that there's an unwritten rule that states "No hardware store is allowed to stock compatible/matching plumbing fittings." They'll have everything except that one piece or two needed to complete the job or repair.

I usually have to hit the 3 nearby for weekend work projects… and I usually get what I need.

 

[MossRoad]

I know I'm old because I'm constantly swatting at Ocular floaters.

Wait until you get ocular migraines.

First one scares the **** out of you. Then it's kind of amusing.

Mine looked exactly like this but the triangles were white with black lines. Lasted about 20 minutes. I thought I was stroking out until the doctor showed me some pictures and I said "Hey, that was it!!!"

 

[MossRoad]

I have one in my left eye that drives me crazy. When sitting at the counter eating breakfast and reading the paper, moving my eyes makes it jump around and I think it's a bug or something.

About the only time I notice them is on a nice sunny day with clear blue sky. Then there are dozens of them. Makes you think your eyes are dust covered.

 

[MossRoad]

Hey BravoXray, what is this paper you speak of?

Yeah. I keep having flashbacks and dreams where is seems like I'm stuck in a factory with large rolls of finely ground trees made into a film or sheet. They ran them through a huge machine that looks just like this, and they came out the other end with cryptic patterns on them....

 

[MossRoad]

Everything breaks on the weekend. Everything.

I'm fairly certain that's the main reason my wife keeps me around.

 

[NoTrespassing]

About the only time I notice them is on a nice sunny day with clear blue sky. Then there are dozens of them. Makes you think your eyes are dust covered.

The first time I noticed them I thought there was something floating in my glass of water (or beer)

 

[BravoXray]

Hey BravoXray, what is this paper you speak of?

It's the Goshen News, the local newspaper. Maybe you're to young to remember when you got some of your information from printed media, instead of those worthless social media sites.
The big thing for me is coverage of local events, meetings and events that isn't covered on broadcast news. Also, I work the daily crossword puzzle during breakfast. Haven't gotten a taste for Sudoku, even though I like math problems.

 

[BravoXray]

Well... got past mom. Not hard to do when someone lived on coffee and cigarettes.

Add beer and gin to that list and that's what did in one of my sisters at 70 years old. The last 10 years of that were a constant schedule of doctor, ER and hospital stays. It broke my heart to watch her go that way.